Wednesday 4 April 2012

Global Warming Debate - An Engineering Perspective




Update June 17th 2013

I notice people are still viewing this old blog so it's time for an update.
There is now a significant amount of material which closes the door on this debate.

The first issue I would like to review is "just how much can we humans expect to be able to control nature by varying human CO2 levels?"
This chart sums it up.

So the total Greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere is dominated by natural water vapor, which is at 95% of the total.
CO2 makes up just 3.6% of the total and human CO2 makes up just 3.2% of that.
Hence the maximum influence we can expect over nature's greenhouse gasses is 3.2% of that 3.6% = 3.6*3.2/100 =  0.1152% or approximately 0.12% as shown in the diagram.

So if earth were the Titanic, then by offloading all humans and their nasty industrialization from it, we can expect to be able to steer the Titanic with a rudder 0.12% the size of natures rudder. Obviously we can't go to such an extreme so lets say we can halve human CO2 output, which by the way, is near impossible. So now we get to have a control influence of 0.06% of natures influence.
So by spending trillions of dollars we can build a rudder about the size of an icy pole stick, with which we hope to steer the Titanic where we want to go, and not where nature wants to go with her gigantic Titanic rudder. 
FAT CHANCE!

As futile as it is to drive nature with human CO2 levels as shown above, lets now do a reality check on this massive 400 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere that the warmists want us to panic about.
The questions that need answering here are:
1. How unusual is the 400 ppm level?
2. Has earth coped with it previously?
3. Does CO2 actually cause warming?

Question 1 & 2 help to answer question 3 in this link from 2010, which looks at the CO2 and warming issue from a Geologist perspective.


So the answer to Q1 becomes clear. The link shows that not only has earth been at 400 ppm before, this level is alarmingly low in the history of CO2 levels. In fact the report uses the term "CO2 Impoverished" to describe our current levels.

As for Q2, the link above shows that earth has coped with levels 17 times today's level, without hitting any tipping point or extreme temperatures. Even if it did, this is nature! Industrialization wasn't around in the Cambrian or Carboniferous Periods. 

As for Q3, CO2 may effect warming but the link shows that it's not significant in comparison with the Geological state of the planet. Furthermore, Astronomers will tell you it's also insignificant in comparison to the Perihelia, the earths tilt angle, the specific orbit and the solar activity. 
All of the above are independent variables which can fall into a state which brings about climate conditions from ice ages to significant warm phases.

The most challenging state for human life is an ice age. Some of the variables above are in an ice age state at this time.
If CO2 does cause warming, then its dangerously low levels are also in an ice age state.
It seems to me that we should be cranking up our CO2 output and fast.

This climate scam is farcical and illogical, but most of all it's criminal for what it has done to many economies.

As Richard Lindzen, 2010, Lead Author, IPCC 3rd Assessment report puts it. "This period will be remembered as a bizarre footnote in the history of science".


It's made money for the press, funding and notoriety for the climate scientists, provided a tax and control platform for governments, but most of all, it has destroyed the economies of countries that most wanted to be influenced by it.

It's time to WAKE UP to this scam before it's too late for your country!

Robert Keon, June 1st, 2013, updated June 17, 2013.
PS. I am aware that the above oversimplifies the climate debate. That's for good reason.
For those who want more in-depth discussion from an engineering perspective, I recommend this paper: 
Here's the old post from just 12 months ago. It's quite dated so it's good for historical purposes only.

Preface

When Al Gore presented the postulate that CO2 caused uncontrolled warming, I, like many others, accepted the evidence presented as “the most likely scenario”.
Like others, I was too busy making a living to do any cross checking or research on the subject so I just went with the flow.
Having semi-retired early last year and now, with the luxury of time, I decided I would research this subject since it had become apparent that an alarming amount of scepticism had overtaken Al Gore’s position.
At that time I would have considered myself to be a passive warmist.

This summary is presented to show the conclusion that most people of my background would arrive at after doing some light research over a few months, starting with a completely open mind on the subject.
The reason I am so confident of this is that the evidence is heavily one sided. So much so that I had considered that I must have missed some vital evidence and expended significant effort in seeking a properly balanced view.

Having come to the conclusion that the sceptics are right and realizing the extreme significance, I believe it is vitally important that those of us that are able should do their own independent research, so that they too understand the significance in relation to present government policy, not just in this country but the world over.

My background is professional engineering, specifically in electronics/communication disciplines with experience in the aviation industry in auto-pilot, control systems, navigation, electronics, communications and instrumentation systems. So, nothing to do with climate science, however the fact that I have been heavily involved with R&D could be a factor in my research techniques and findings.


AGW Summary

CO2 Scare, Where did it come from?

Al Gore, a social scientist and former US vice president, presented the “CO2 causes uncontrolled warming” postulate to the world around 2005/6.

In science you can postulate anything. It’s only after you have exhausted all possible means of refuting your postulate that you can accept it as fact. Failure to do so renders your science as “pseudo-science”.

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), operating under the UN charter was so concerned by the ramifications of this postulate that it decided that immediate action was required, just in case the postulate was confirmed as fact. Hence, by their own admission, they triggered their scare campaign under a “pseudo-science” banner. Their justification was a perceived consequence of delaying corrective action if the postulate proved to be fact.

This is where it all went wrong. Green politics then interfered to such an extent that little or no effort was put into refuting Al Gore’s postulate. The situation became much worse as other science bodies started to produce empirical evidence, which did indeed refute the postulate. Instead of considering that evidence, the IPCC actively discouraged and discredited such sources. In doing so the IPCC contravened all the traditional protocols and ethics of science.

One important study showing that CO2 has no effect on warming is given in Ref 1. In this study a technique similar to that of correlation, as used in communications to extract signal from noise, is used to try to identify the existence of Al Gore’s CO2 hockey stick signal in the real Global Surface Temperature (GST) data. My background makes me confident that, if the signal was there, this technique would find it but it didn’t. Hence Al Gore’s postulate is refuted and thus invalid. The worst thing is that the IPCC don’t want to know about it. To my knowledge no empirical evidence has ever been presented by the IPCC to counter this.

Another important piece of evidence is the GST predictions being conducted by Dr Nicola Scafetta’s group. Ref 2 shows the group’s GST prediction made in the year 2000 is still tracking real GST data except for the latest HadCRUT3 data, where the actual GST data is slightly below their predicted range (NB “below” not “above”). Note that the IPCC prediction made in year 2007 is completely off track, so much so that it appears to be a deliberate attempt to cause alarm. Again the worst thing about this is that the IPCC don’t want to know about it and again, to my knowledge, no empirical evidence has ever been presented by the IPCC to counter it.

How the IPCC and their science, which had started out being so genuinely concerned for the good of the planet, became such a politically divisive body of pseudoscience is a question that will be asked for a long time to come.

I was astounded to learn recently that there is no empirical evidence linking CO2 to uncontrolled warming. For a long time, I pleaded with warmists for such evidence, only to find that several groups had offered significant $$$ for such data. None has ever been forthcoming. All I found supporting the IPCC science is loads and loads of verbose suggestive material. For example the recent re-run of an old scare documentary by the left/green dominated SBS “Arctic With Bruce Parry: Norway” where an old bearded guy says he has “never seen anything like this before, it must be man-made warming”. I wonder if that old guy knows the cyclic effects of the sun has periods well beyond his life-span. I also wonder what he would say if he knew that the sea ice levels are now at a 6 year high and rapidly approaching a 10 year high.

As indicated above, one of the tactics of the IPCC is to discredit other sources of scientific data. They support this approach by claiming that 97% of climate scientists are in agreement with them, so they have the credibility!!
It takes a few months to gather most of the evidence from both sides of the debate. One thing that becomes clear from such an exercise is that, either the 97% are completely unproductive while the 3% are quite the opposite or the 97% claim is mere fantasy. I see that they have now starting quoting “97 to 98%”. Obviously the 97% figure wasn’t doing it for them!

Conclusion

When conducting research of this type it is vitally important to maintain focus on the material being sought. This is the subject of a scientific postulate.  Hence if its proponents are to be considered “scientific” then we expect to find evidence of their exhaustive efforts to refute their postulate. I found no such evidence. In fact I found no evidence that they had even lifted a finger in pursuit of that goal. This in itself is positive evidence that this group is not being scientific.

What I did find is a mountain of material, which I have dubbed “irrelevant green spin”. It’s important not to be distracted by it but by all means be angered by the billions of our dollars spent by our governments to produce it.

The above is merely a brief summary of my research process and findings. For more detail on this vast subject I suggest Ref 3 which presents an excellent overview from a fellow Engineer. It's a three part video presentation, easily understood and covers most aspects in great detail. In the final part (part 3) the politics of this subject are reviewed. As a follow on from this, I suggest Ref 4 which extracts quotes from a 1944 document that show how our Western Style democracy could be brought down by socialists or communists. It's of significant concern that many of the processes discussed are in place at this time and this climate scare campaign is partly to blame.

Thanks for taking the time to read my summary.
Robert Keon, Apr 4, 2012
Last Updated June 1, 2013


References:


Ref 2: Dr Nicola Scafetta year 2000 predictions versus IPCC year 2007 predictions http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/scafettas-solar-lunar-cycle-forecast-vs-global-temperature/

Ref 3: Dr David Evans Video Presentation of the global warming debate

Ref 4: The process of destruction of our Western civilization by socialists/communists as reviewed in 1944


Acronyms:

IPCC=Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

AGW=Anthropogenic (man-made) Global Warming

ACC= Anthropogenic Climate Change

GST=Global Surface Temperature

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